Quotes by Joseph Brodsky

“For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.”

“What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.”

“I do not believe in political movements. I believe in personal movement, that movement of the soul when a man who looks at himself is so ashamed that he tries to make some sort of change - within himself, not on the outside.”

“Man is what he reads.”

“It is well to read everything of something, and something of everything.”

“Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family.”

“The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie.”

“Poetry is rather an approach to things, to life, than it is typographical production.”

“After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life.”

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